


where we will, we'll roam

by orphan_account



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M, Magic and Mermaids and Shit, Pirate AU, Secret Santa 2k19, hell yeah, ya boi went. a little off prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:27:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21882991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: now some have died and some are alive- and others sail on the sea.Gavin knows his chances of seeing Jeremy are slim. The sea is cruel and unforgiving, and the storms unrelenting.Still.
Relationships: Jeremy Dooley/Gavin Free, background jackeoff
Comments: 9
Kudos: 41





	where we will, we'll roam

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JustAddSalt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAddSalt/gifts).



> happy holidays, merry chrysler, it's That Time of Year Baybee- this is my gift to Orion! i hope you enjoy it and i hope you don't. mind that i kind of went buck fucking wild off prompt a little bit. i like the inherent storytelling aspect of magic and shit. pirates deal with magic. 
> 
> or something.
> 
> anyways!!!!! i hope you enjoy!!!!!

Jeremy leaves in the morning.

He lays awake in his room that night, rough blankets tucked up to his chin as he fights off the fading winter’s chill, eyes heavy with the need for rest, but he _can’t_. Worry writhes in his chest as the first rain of the season pelts onto the wooden roof‒ not for the storms he’ll face at sea, no. What plagues him is not the idea of danger he will find himself in. Jeremy knows better than that, has lived through that before with the Navy on his heels and ancient sea gods against him as well. He hasn’t worried for himself in years. But the boy downstairs gives him something to worry about.

The son of the owner, to be exact‒ adopted to be sure, with little visual relation to each other. The Cornflower is a seedy little tavern at the edge of town, tucked between larger buildings and ship houses and hidden in the darker alleyways just away enough from prying eyes. Not enough to lose business, but enough to keep their patrons safe. The Cornflower is, of course, a pirate’s tavern, and Burnie Burns has nothing to lose in the way of serving pirates, as far as rumors go.

Burnie’s reputation precedes him but only in hushed drunken whispers. While the man wipes away the bar and keeps an eye on the rowdy ones, the stories go around‒ famed pirate himself, he’s said to have been, one of four with a command over the ocean stronger than iron on a chest. They say the only reason he settled was because his crewmates betrayed him, that he was cast off board his own ship, tossed to the waves’ mercy and ended up on shore here on their measly little port town. And from there, they say, he finds a boy.

Gavin may be the only reason half the pirates even come back to this specific port, and every guest in the tavern knows it. It’s not attraction, for most of the lot, but simply the friendship he offers with easy smiles and uplifting spirit. Gavin, the tavern finds, is the lighthouse in this little city, a beacon for all sailors who’ve turned away from law and office, and he greets nearly each and every one with bright eyes, and an open ear, eager for the tales they all bring from the sea.

It’s Burnie’s chiding of his fascination that picks most of the rumors up, for him, but Gavin can’t be stopped in his curiosity. He’ll listen to old and young wax poetic on their adventures for nights on end, cheek in palm and a faraway look in his eye, and this is how Jeremy meets him.

The night he first comes ashore in this town he’s with his first ever crew, and knows this will be his one chance of hopping onto another ship before the real voyage begins. He finds himself squashed between a curly haired brawler and a tall, intimidating navigator, both of whom find him good enough company to drink with, apparently. When the brawler‒ Jones, he thinks he heard‒ calls for another round, the boy comes around, and Jeremy’s heart stops for the briefest of moments.

“Tell you lads what,” he says, holding the pitcher up high. “If you tell me well enough tales, you’ll get the whole lot that you’ve drunk on the house.”

Behind him, at the bar, Burnie makes a strangled little noise in the back of his throat, but doesn’t directly say a word, and the boy in front of him grins a little wider, sliding a chair up to them and sitting in front of them, pouring them each a tall glass. “Who’s going first?”

“C’mon, Gav,” Jones says at Jeremy’s side, and nods his head towards him. “Not fair to the new kid, putting him up against your favorites.”

“Ah, let ‘im have a go,” Gav replies, resting his chin in his hands with a sweet little smile. “There’s not much you two are gonna offer me anyways that’s _new,_ haven’t been gone long, have you?”

On his other side, the navigator scoffs, sipping at his brew and grimacing, but nods to Jeremy. “Fine then,” he says, and his voice rumbles deeper than Jeremy thought at the sight of him. “He goes first.”

Jeremy flushes a brighter red when that gaze turns to him, murky green like deeper waters when the sun hits the surface just right. “Haven’t got much to tell of my own, really. Only been on the ship for a few weeks.”

“Right, right,” Gav says, almost visibly glowing at the realization. “You’re the new bloke on the Backwash, aren’t you?”

“Mm-hm,” Jeremy agrees. “The most I’ve got for you is who gets seasick when the boat’s barely gone off dock.”

The men besides him snicker ruthlessly, but Gavin only drops his arm, looking suddenly thoughtful with his lips twisted off to the side as he watches Jeremy carefully. “No, I doubt that’s all. There has to be something in that head of yours you’ve got to offer.”

“Only childhood fairytales,” Jeremy shrugs, but Gavin pushes closer.

“Doubt I’ve heard them, really,” the man says, reaching his hands forward to grasp Jeremy’s, and Jones snorts besides them both.

“Forgive Gavin,” he tells him. “He’s never learned proper human boundaries.”

“Michael, hush,” Gavin hisses, and squeezes Jeremy’s hands. “Tell me _one_ story. Just one.”

Jeremy feels the warmth on his hands twice over, and closes his eyes to hear the crash of the waves on the sides of the boats not too far away. “My favorite, then,” he says, and nearly imagines the way the rest of the tavern noise fades away as the memories rush back quickly and warm his chest with the beer. “My father was a sailor, and his father before him, but it was my mother who told the greatest tales when they were gone to sea. She told me many things, of legendary pirates who’d ruled the waters high, and of fantastical beasts that curled in the deepest depths, but I always favored the words she’d say on the merfolk.”

Gavin’s fingers tighten around his even more, intertwining carefully, but Jeremy almost barely notices. “Mother called them enchanting, but terrifying, always spoke like she’d seen them, and it was a different tale each time. Once she told me of how they could be dangerous, all sharp fangs and teeth and long claws, protectors of wronged ocean life who dragged fishermen down to the bottom and tied them there with kelp and their own nets, how they spoke in shrieks above the water that twisted sound and made the brain bleed slow out the ears‒ and yet, another time, she told me of the beautiful ones, with the scaled tails of multiple colors that caught the eye of sailors who were good enough of heart and soul. Pirates, she said, would see these types when they were on death’s bed, the merfolk calling them back to another chance, if they were kind enough for it. But even those, the beautiful ones, are dangerous as ever, mocking voices that echo someone’s deepest fears and drags them down, further and further, if they are deserving of it.”

“And the sirens?” Gavin whispers, jolting Jeremy to reality once again, but a smile curls at his lips.

“The sirens,” Jeremy murmurs in turn, and opens his eyes to meet Gavin’s, lost, for a moment, in the shining murky green. “Mother talked of them least of all, but called them to most dangerous, and the most beautiful‒ not in face, perhaps, but in _voice_. All the ocean life sings, of course, all in different ways, but sirens truly use their voices, and call to those who need their judgement, and their guidance. For those who deserve judgement, the song is a lure, a way to drag them away from their own safety, hypnosis to their heart. For those who require guidance, the song is _true_ beauty, and matches a melody they miss and have never sung again since they lost it. Sirens are the rarest as they come, trapped by Davy Jones for their insolence against him some time long ago, and the few that slip from his grasp are never seen. The truest of _myths_ , the first of their legends.”

Gavin grins, wide, and pulls his hands away. The mood breaks, like glass, and all of the sounds come rushing back, glasses against glasses and the clink and chatter of other guests and patrons. Next to him, Michael and the navigator are staring with open, shocked eyes that dart back and forth between the two of them, and Gavin laughs as Burnie shouts his name over the rowdiness.

“All rounds on the house,” he says, winking at the other two. “Ryan, Michael, you two are off the hook for the night. But take Jeremy here to the captain‒ someone needs to find him a place on the ship. The Backwash won’t be doing well enough for this one anymore.”

Gavin rolls his eyes at another call from his father, picking up the pitcher and topping off Michael’s glass, patting him on the cheek fondly as he does before shouting back in response and moving, finally, away from their table. Jeremy feels their gazes turn to him, heads tilted curiously, before Ryan’s lips curl up into a grin. “On that then, mister...?”

“Dooley.”

“Mr. Dooley,” Ryan says, and pushes his stool back. “You’ll be needing a new name for the crew, then, tell you that. Geoff ain’t gonna let you on the ship ‘til you’ve got a name.”

“There’s been no questioning?”

“My boi likes you,” Michael tells him, and the way he says it makes it seem like it’s simple as anything, like Jeremy hasn’t just been offered a full job, no questions asked, based on one stranger’s judge of character. “You’re in the crew.”

Now a year or so has gone by, and Jeremy’s place is secure on Geoff’s crew, but it doesn’t make leaving the port any easier. Not without Gavin.

Courting him had not been _hard_ , but it wasn’t easy either, with his father hovering over their table so often as the two of them grew closer and closer‒ and with the distance so often tearing them apart as Jeremy came and went on the waters. That first morning, by way of Michael’s comment, Jeremy had assumed Gavin would be coming along with them, but the captain of the Achievement had only laughed heartily and slapped the boy on his back.

“Gav’s not one for the sea, kid,” Geoff said, tearing at a piece of jerky. “‘sides the fact his dad won’t let him go, the poor boy’s afraid of it‒ but that ain’t my story to tell. Someday, when you’re closer, Gavin’ll start telling you tales of his own in exchange for the ones you’ve got to offer.”

But when he returns to that port that third time, he’s delighted to find Gavin pushing an official address into his hands before they push off in the morning.

“Wherever you go,” he says, with that shine in his eyes like always, “you can write to me. I may not be able to write back, but at least we’ll have something more to talk about when you return to me.”

Jeremy laughs, and glances towards where the tavern is hidden from sight, watching briefly for a glimpse of Burnie‒ when he sees none, he presses a kiss to Gavin’s cheek and takes the note from Gavin’s palms, dashing up the ramp towards the ship and leaving Gavin on the dock with his palm up to his face, bright red and grinning wide as he waves the ship off in the early morning air.

And Jeremy _writes_.

He knows that the others jeer and jest at him, calling him lovesick and poking fun, but Ryan and Jack are good at allaying the others from that sort of talk when they know it starts to get to him. By the light of a rocking oil lamp, Jeremy writes, and writes, notebooks full of logs and stories and little tales, letters and the like, and ties them with twine when they reach the shore and sends them off with other little gifts‒ teas and recipes, inks and pen tips and stamps, treasures and the like that he knows Gavin could appreciate, all trapped in that one little town of his. By their third stop on that trip, Jeremy has the address memorized, but keeps the paper close to his heart anyways, the one thing Gavin has given him thus far.

And when he returns to the Cornflower that go around, Gavin meets him at the docks, wrapped in thick jackets as the winter begins to settle in the morning dews. Burnie is nearby, watching carefully, but doesn’t step in when Gavin throws his arms around Jeremy with laughter that sounds like music, and Jeremy thinks of it to be like approval.

So the cycle goes on, and now it’s getting to be too much, and Jeremy leaves in the morning, leaves his _love_ behind in the morning, and the rain shudders relentlessly against the roof, beating hard like his heart seems to be in his ears, thunder rolling across his bones, lightning along his fingertips. He doesn’t want to think about it, kind of just wants to sleep because if he doesn’t the next few nights will be rough on the ship, tossing against the waves, adrenaline preventing his rest for a while.

Jeremy curls tighter into the blankets, twisting the ring on his finger over and over until he can close his eyes, just for a moment.

Gavin waves to the ship long after it’s gone from the horizon, fog covering his sight before even then, and finally drops his hand when the rain starts up again. Behind him at the door stands Burnie, holding a warm cup and watching him carefully, waiting for Gavin to come back inside.

“Navy’ll be around in an hour or so,” he finally says, just before Gavin starts to feel completely soaked through. “When they notice the ship is gone they’ll ask around and go after them. Geoff hasn’t exactly been subtle, this go around.”

“They won’t catch up.”

“The navy ships are the fastest around, bud, they’ll be on them pretty soon, and if not, they’ll be there fast enough. Geoff and the others have a long trip planned out.”

“And they still won’t find them.”

The rain has plastered his hair to his skin, travels down his neck and arms. The cold seeps into him, deeper and deeper, and Gavin smiles at the roll of thunder that comes across the water, the lightning it has followed.

“The storm will catch them first.”

Burnie frowns to himself‒ he’s unsure of who Gavin means. A chill settles over him now, too, and Gavin finally turns from the sea, smile fading fast. When his bare feet leave the pier, a wave swallows the wood in water, rocking nearby ships and sinking unkempt rowboats.

The tavern door closes, and the storm rages strong.

Gavin knows his chances of seeing Jeremy are slim. The sea is cruel and unforgiving, and the storms unrelenting.

Still.

He plays no favorites in the time that follows. The guests stay entertained, the navy stays restless. They pursue the Achievement through it all, but the officers still whisper to Gavin their doubts. Everyone trades in stories, here, and Gavin is eager to listen as always. He finds himself lucky he can remember so much, even luckier so that he can write in another language beyond English. Gavin takes their secrets and inks them down, holds them close, and knows his chances.

He receives no letters from Jeremy, only sad looks from Burnie when the delivery boy comes around and there’s nothing in it for him, but Gavin knows better. He doesn’t mourn, doesn’t say a word, never takes up any offers on his adopted father’s part to comfort him. He fiddles with the ring around his neck at night and sings to himself, and then, when morning comes, he laughs and lavishes with the guests, and skirts around a line he’ll never really cross.

The storm at the port does settle, eventually, and the navy spends money to revitalize their ships again, to bring them to life. They spend a month hard at work rebuilding, and Gavin gets no letters each week. He schools his face, and lies to the officers every time they come around for a pint or two. Days before the boat is finished, the winds pick up, chilling the workers deeply.

Gavin drinks warm tea at the window, and the morning before they leave, the storm begins again.

“Damn,” Burnie says, rolling up the awnings to keep them from blowing away. “Haven’t seen a mess like this since I was on the seas.”

Gavin hums, a little sadly. “I don’t like it,” he murmurs into his mug. “I know what I said but this? This is too much.”

“Gavin...”

He rubs at his eyes, tugging the blanket closer over himself and leans his head against the cold glass of the window. “They’ll be alright,” he repeats to himself, over and over. He doesn’t notice when Burnie leaves him with only a candle and a plate of quickly cooling dinner. “They’ll be alright,” he hums, and imagines that black and green flag on the horizon coming home.

Spring passes, and eventually, the storm.

Three months, Gavin has gone without a note from his husband-to-be. The chain the ring hangs on has been changed out twice, the metal snapped from all his twisting and tugging. The silver is worn down, in places, from where he rubs it between his fingers for comfort. He serves drinks over hot food, twists his lips in a tired smile. The sailors that are new think it’s a sign of wearing him down, finally getting him to loosen himself up to the idea of spending just a bit more time with him. The regulars know better, and give him pitying looks.

He doesn’t _want_ their pity, he thinks.

When the summer sun is highest over the docks and lays waste to the air, the weather calms, and the seawater boils under the light, the sand burns his bare feet. Gavin watches the waves lap at the shore from his spot beneath the wood, listening to soldiers walk over him as he waits for something unreachable. Every single one of them laughs about pirates falling to the navy across the nations, along the border. The wind is non existent, and dry, and every time the sunlight hits his skin through the openings in the wood his skin warms. But every other part of him does not, and as the sun climbs and falls, Gavin only feels like he’s cracking into cold glass.

Burnie finds him when the moon is reflected on the edge of the water in the far distance, a fog just beginning to settle. He doesn’t say anything, so the older man doesn’t either, instead crouching beneath the beams and sitting down next to his son, wrapping an arm around his shoulder, rubbing comfortably in silence.

Five months, 12 days, 18 hours, and Gavin is left on the beach that night with no one but his father to comfort him as he finally, finally begins to believe that maybe, for once, he was wrong about Poseidon’s mercy.

It doesn’t make it easier, of course. Doesn’t change a thing, beyond the fact that now, more than ever, he has no one to confide in, to trust, to care for like this. His heart is a brittle, battered thing, sun-dried seaweed washed ashore, left cracking in the beaks of the seagulls and sailors who hunger for one more meal like _him_.

That night, when Burnie finally gets him home, Gavin tugs the chain from his neck and tucks it away into a little glass bottle and corks it shut, and wraps it all in kelp and shells, and leaves it buried in the sand where he sat the next day, and lets himself forget.

Well.

He _tries_. But that love has burrowed low and deep into his heart, and he knows, for some long time, he will continue waiting for Jeremy to come home.

And one night, after he can’t stand the flirting and the leering, the new sailors coming through faster and faster, the letter box by his bed collecting dust, he makes a decision, and walks out to the docks in the night. Everything seems wrong, but in the way he likes it.

“Give them back,” he says to the night sky, clear of clouds, of stars, and of moon. The sea, beneath the planks, sits still, but echoes lights on it’s surface that aren’t there, bioluminescence sparkling on the stillness. For miles, the water is flat, untouched by the wind that coarsely runs through his hair and makes him lose his balance. “Give the rest back to me.”

His sweat is sufficient enough, saltwater to saltwater, and when it hits the ocean his reflection clears beneath him.

 _The price you are willing to pay?_ his reflection asks, something unnatural in the glow of the green of its eyes, and Gavin tightens his fist against his chest.

“I don’t have much to give‒ my ring, I suppose, is buried just beneath‒”

 _Your ring will remain there_ , the sea whispers. _I will not take that from you, not yet._ His reflection says nothing, and lets the ocean speak instead. _If you need a suggestion, I can give it?_

“Please.”

 _Oh!_ the mockery of him on the surface realizes, alight with mischief he hasn’t felt in years. _A song, then!_

Gavin sighs, wrapping his loose jacket tighter around him and looks out across the water. The wind whips around him again, cutting at his bare ankles. When he sits with his feet hanging off the dock, the liquid does not touch him, and he barely misses the surface when he swings his legs idly. The tides are at their lowest, this time of year.

And in the unnatural stillness, a bell almost tolls, the echo of the false sound travelling across the waveless sea on and on, and around him. Gavin listens to it, for a time, and lets it comfort his nerves. He hasn’t sung in a time‒ he’s never really liked his own voice, but he liked to hum in the bar. The melody of his favorite never leaves him but the lyrics, he finds, are harder.

And into the night he sings, the wind carrying his voice away. To passerby it may seem strange, but Gavin knows no one will pass by, not tonight, not with the way the world stays still to listen to him. His reflection on the water sinks, in time, and the waves begin to pick up, and when the stars begin to blink back into sight, he stands and turns away towards the tavern, ignoring the way the water tugs back on to the surface, and rubbing at his throat.

In the morning, the navy stays away from the docks, by the mercy of the sea, and Gavin asks for Burnies help when he spies the five bodies resting just at the edge of the sand.

The crew of the Achievement have to share a room, but Gavin takes Jeremy to his bed, tucking him beneath the covers and wiping the last of the sand and seawater from his brow.

The sight of him brings life to Gavin’s heart again, warm and heavy in his chest as he presses his forehead against his unconscious husband’s and sighs in relief. The bargain was worth it, he thinks. Dangerous, of course‒ his voice is weaker, and his sense for music lost‒ but _worth_ it, to see his family and love safe at home.

He realizes a little later that it’s not the same, though.

Something in each of them has changed, just a little. He can see it in the way they sleep. Too peaceful, ramrod straight, cold to the touch even after days of being under hot covers and the steam of warm food replaced, left by their beds for if they should awaken. They don’t, though, and Gavin keeps watch one night when he knows Burnie won’t come in, sits in the window nook and watches them each with a careful eye. The waves crash loudly against the shore outside, and Gavin shakes when midnight hits and they have been asleep for three days and the entire night passes, and none of his boys _move_ , still as statues. No tossing from nightmares, no breath visible in the cold air. In his concern, he’d placed hands over their hearts, and when their heartbeats thrummed so quietly in their chest he could barely find it in the silence, he bit back a sob.

Geoff wakes up before Gavin steps away, taking his wrist and making a quiet noise. Gavin doesn’t feel any relief, though, as the captain opens his eyes, and they are devoid of anything that once made them so bright. The usual blue is dulled, lifeless almost, and there is no recognition in them when he looks over Gavin.

“Water?” Geoff croaks, and Gavin smiles without warmth. “Water?”

“Yes, Geoff,” Gavin whispers, and takes his wrist from Geoff’s hand. “I can get you some water.”

“Give me their _pearls!”_ he demands, stomping his foot against the slow rotting wood. The water ripples with taunting laughter when sweat drips from his brow. His reflection grins up to him.

_The price?_

“Their stories,” he says, because that truly is the only price to regain precious things. The water could give him any pearl, and they would gain any stranger’s remembrance‒ he’d seen it enough to know the danger of the bargain by now. “For my crew’s pearls.”

The ocean does not respond, but his reflection on the surface hums, and sinks to the bottom, and he starts his tales with Michael, because Michael is the easiest, Michael is his best friend. He tells of his brawling boi, with split knuckles and sharp canines and raucous laughter that echoes across the sea. The ocean has heard his victories, and his losses, because Michael Jones is never quiet. He tells about how Michael meets a barmaid two towns over that loves him deeply and does not take his shit, and how he feels so deeply for her that it is the modern day godly romance. Gavin tells of his protector, the wolf who refound his pack, a soulmate in another sense. His brother.

He moves to Jack, next, the second in command of the ship, the caretaker, the nurse. Strong in heart, and body, and soul, a warm person in every way. He reminisces on Jack’s love of the captain, how the two of them are so deeply intertwined with each other’s lives, how Jack has so often risked his own life for Geoff’s, how the two of them were married on the ship, first, but in the tavern as well, so that he could witness it too. Gavin tells of the man who has taken such careful care of his crew, his family, and he tries not to cry more when he thinks too much about it.

And then he goes to Ryan, his lovely Ryan, tied for favorite along with Jeremy, not that he could ever tell Michael that. Ryan, who is as dangerous as he is silly, easily distracted, tripping over his words, but clever and sharp and so kind in such a strange way. Gavin tells his favorite story of the navy man who’d been wronged by his superiors, the man who’d broken out of jail and disappeared‒ if the ocean asks why this story is connected, he only smiles to himself. Ryan is ridiculous and vicious, and does anything Gavin asks, and is everything Gavin could ever care about, in a lot of ways he can’t explain.

Geoff‒ of course‒ is last. How can he begin to describe Geoff, to explain his tales in the way they are meant to be told. How does he start the story of the legendary crew of four against the entire navy, of how things go wrong when the sea god himself goes against them. How does he tell of the four friends, and how they split apart, and how one of them finds his soulmate to tend to his wounds. How can Gavin explain the captain that reclaims his ship and his life, and how one day, he finds an old friend in the tavern on the port, and how that friend has a son, now. He has no right, to tell those tales, to say these things, but he does.

Before he finishes, the dawn alights the sky and the ocean hums soft and low. Beneath the surface, far at the bottom, he spies bursting lights in multicolor, and knows he has done right.

When he returns to the tavern, Burnie and Geoff are at the bar, chatting quietly over cups of tea, and Geoff waves to him as he walks in, and the sight of his eyes brightened makes his chest feel warm again. He makes his way over to sit with them, accepting his own cup and staying, just to hear the silence. The bar fills more as the morning breaks‒ Jack and Ryan and Michael all make their way down, pressing quick touches to his shoulders and hands as they pass by to sit near their captain.

He doesn’t spend much time like that‒ none of them do, really, not with the navy coming back later in the day. Each of them returns to their room, quietly, as the sun rises steadily and noon approaches faster and faster. Gavin loses himself in the bustle as the sailors start to come in, the jingle of the bell above the door, and the constant thrumming chatter of the patrons as the stories start again. The navy comes and takes their peace quicker than he could have thought, and by the time the night begins to liven up, his crew is back in their usual place at the table in the corner, with two empty spots saved at their side. Something bothers him about that, but he can’t quite figure out what yet. Once Burnie’s back is turned (and even if it wasn’t, he’s given his word early on that Gavin can take a break), he slips into the booth and curls into Michael’s side, and asks, with shining eyes, for a new tale. They skirt around their crash, skirt around why they’d been on that route in the first place, but they tell little tidbits that he effortlessly commits to memory, letting their voices block the rest of the world out completely, for a time.

And then Ryan mentions the missing piece.

“Where is Jeremy, anyways?” Geoff asks, not noticing how Gavin’s entire world seems to have frozen with his heart when he looks to him. Gavin only smiles weakly in a short semblance of composure and swallows the shakiness in his voice.

“Upstairs. He’s still... sleeping.”

The rest of them don’t seem to understand the gravity of that, but later on, when they go back to their room, Gavin slips into his own to slip his hand onto Jeremy’s chest for the heartbeat.

Thunder echoes in the distance, and he wishes he could believe that is why he can’t feel his love’s life force as strong as it needs to be.

_The allowance is three_ , the sea says at it awakens with Gavin’s tears.

He feels his heart stop. “There‒ there must be a mistake,” he stammers. “I’ve only asked two things of you. I’m permitted a third‒”

_Youngest one, you reached your third in your askance of the pearls._

“No! I‒”

 _How easily you forgot the before_ , the sea rumbles. He grits his teeth, already trying to wipe at the tears in his eyes, and is set to argue, but the churning of his stomach is like the ocean waves, circling in a whirlpool, and his frail heart sinks to the bottom as he remembers what he asked.

“You didn’t fulfill the last one properly,” he says instead. “My love’s pearl‒”

 _Your love was not a part of your crew_ , his reflection crows gleefully, a sour sight and grating voice against the calm ocean song. _And you only asked for theirs._

Gavin pulls his fist to his mouth and bites down on his skin, the sharpness in his teeth drawing blood from his knuckles. The rain doesn’t seem to fall, not yet, but the clouds are dark above him and he knows a storm is coming. “Please,” he says, “he is everything to me.”

 _Nothing can be done_ , his reflection laughs, vile and vicious, but the ocean swallows his voice away.

“The ring,” Gavin barters desperately. “Take the ring _now_ , you said‒”

The ocean’s hum both quiets him and makes him angry, a boiling, rumbling thing that makes him want to reach out and strike the calm waters. _I’m sorry. But this is the limit._

Gavin cries in anguish, his knees hitting the deck. The world seems hopeless, and _now_ the rain begins to mist downwards, too gentle against his skin for what it really is. His reflection, for once, says nothing, seemingly silenced by the true self’s despair, and even the sea seems troubled, the soft sprinkling sending ripples across the flat surface, breaking it’s calm.

 _There is an alternative_.

Gavin’s breath catches.

_To retake a wish, one must be undone. Are you willing?_

His eyes close again and he lets out a long, slow breath, because of course‒ of _course_ he is willing, of course he is. But the only wish he has that can be undone‒ the only thing he’s ever asked‒

He cannot unwish his family’s return, because then what will asking for Jeremy’s pearl even do. He cannot unwish the other’s pearls, either, because he is selfish and without them, what can he do? His first wish, however, is easily unmade, as much as it hurts _him_ , as much as he wishes it could not be done in such a way.

“Do I get the night with him?”

The ocean only sings it’s agreement, and his reflection sinks into the beneath.

“Then I am willing.”

The world unfreezes in an instant‒ the wind howls around him, sharp and cold, and taking the summer rain in circles on his skin. The storm grows heavy with no pause, loud and unforgiving and freezing him to the bone, and he is reminded of the day his love had first sailed away. He is reminded of the day he met Jeremy. He is reminded of the day he first left his own home.

Lighting illuminates the oncoming waves, and this time, when he turns to leave, the water crashes behind him closer than ever before, lights bursting in the seafoam.

Jeremy is awake when he gets back, with a bowl of hot soup and a cup of whiskey for the nerves. He seems to brighten, when Gavin walks in, but notices, immediately, the distress he seems to wear.

“Hey, Gav,” he says, concern in every note of his voice. “You okay?”

For a moment, all Gavin can do is stare, his lips parted to say something, but the thoughts can’t seem to come. His entire being is overflowing with emotion, and the last six months finally, finally catch up to him. His lover‒ his fiance‒ gone, for so long, and probably dead at that, and he had had no way of knowing. Of finding him. How long had Jeremy been under the waves, trapped away from everything but the cold embrace of the ocean. And Gavin lets the grief and relief and everything mix into one heart wrenching emotion that he can’t identify and collapses into Jeremy’s arms, finally content, forgetting for a moment what he’s just done. Jeremy wraps him in a warm blanket and dries his hair off as best he can, hushing him gently, calmly taking him closer to heart and pressing soft kisses to the top of his soaked hair, steady and gentle and so, so unchanging like everything else Gavin’s life has brought.

“I need to tell you something,” Gavin whispers, once he feels like he can stomach his decision enough to say it aloud.

“Story of your own?” Jeremy asks. Gavin laughs weakly in return, resting his head on Jeremy’s lap and letting the other man pet through his hair.

“Do you remember the story you told me, when we first met?”

“Of course.”

“This is... related, in a way. It’s about merfolk, yes, but about one in particular.”

Jeremy pauses, and Gavin knows he knows at that point, and fear overtakes him momentarily. But he says nothing and Gavin breathes easy, and tells the only story he knows by heart.

“He was young, and afraid, and lonely‒ not alone, never alone. The ocean and sea are alive and always have been, and they cradled him and his siblings for years as they grew, tangled in the kelp, playmates with the sea life. Each had their own magic, and each, of course, could ask things of their caretaker, as children often do. But only three are absolutely guaranteed‒ no more, no less, and anything else they asked would be up to fate. Every one of the merchild’s siblings left early, asking their three requests and earning their rewards, and dispersed from their birthplace, and changed their names, and made something of their magic. But this merchild stayed close to where he’d been born, tucked away in the depths of the ocean, afraid of what rested on the surface‒ until, one day, the ocean had had enough, and thrust him up to the top.

“When he breached the water, just for a moment, the air chilled him and dried him, and the wind ruffled his hair, and he discovered his magic quite quickly‒ but it was something else that caught his eye. A ship nearby, with four humans aboard, laughing and sailing and pleased with themselves, and the merchild fell in love.”

“I think I’ve heard this one before,” Jeremy murmurs, and Gavin laughs quietly.

“Not quite,” he whispers back, tracing Jeremy’s jaw with cold fingers. “It wasn’t a person he fell in love with, specifically. It was the humans themselves, the nature of humanity. He longed and loved so deeply he left his home without a thought, and followed the boat back to it’s dock for weeks on end, and became attached, dearly, to it’s crew, to the point where he called them _his_. And in a moment of forgetfulness, he asked for his first wish‒ and the ocean gave it to him, but not without a price. All wishes, you’ll find, come with prices, and the merchild’s was this: he would be human, yes, but he could never touch the water again, and a part of him would always rest within the waves. Forever, he would feel a missing part of himself, and forever, he would wish to feel the sea’s cold embrace once more. But! He had his crew, now, and a father who loved him, despite what he was, and even with no chance of ever taking to the ships themselves, he had _stories_ to live off of.

“There came a day when the boy met someone who filled a part of that missing piece, and he was even happier than before. But that came with it’s own price, and, once the two promised themselves to each other wholly, the piece of the boy that was still within the ocean grew jealous. It dragged the lover and the crew under the waves while they were away, and took pieces of them‒ their memories, their breaths, their souls, and stowed it all away into pearls. It made the boy grow sad, and desperate. Twice three, his family was gone, two cycles of the moon, and near the third, he forgot himself, and made two more wishes. The first, his family to be returned, and the second, for his crew’s pearls. Each wish required a price to pay‒ for the first, he gave up his song, another part of the sea he would miss, something he had kept so close, his heart falling to pieces more and more. The second, he gave the ocean the stories they had told him, and lost nothing from it, thankfully. In his sadness, though, he had mistaken his question, and in asking for the pearls, he did not ask for them all‒ his love, he discovered, remained near lifeless, without a pearl, an empty husk. So the boy went out a third night and asked for a third request.”

“He’d used three, though,” Jeremy says, lips twisted. “Then how...”

“Shh,” Gavin hushes, a little more sadly. “He turns in one wish for another.”

It takes a moment. A long, unhappy moment, as Gavin sees the realization come to life in Jeremy’s eyes. He does not say anything, for a time after that moment, and Gavin’s hands grow colder against Jeremy’s skin as the moon begins to fall from its place up highest.

“Oh, Gavin,” Jeremy says, and it is so soft and sad and sweet that Gavin already feels tears in the corners of his eyes. “What did you do?”

“In the morning,” he whispers, “the water takes me back. I return to myself‒”

“And you leave me. You leave _us_ ,” Jeremy tells him, wiping away the tear tracks. “There has to be a way.”

“No, Jeremy, this is how it is‒”

“There has to be a _way_ ,” Jeremy repeats, pressing a kiss to Gavin’s forehead. “I won’t let you go, not after all you’ve done, not after you’ve just gotten me back‒ six _months_ , Gavin, six months I was gone from you, and you were gone from me. I won’t stand for it.”

He doesn’t argue, but he knows it’s so futile. The two of them rest in a melancholic sort of silence, and eventually Gavin drifts off, tears still streaming down his cheeks, and Jeremy can feel ridges along his neck where gills are meant to go, can see bioluminescence in his veins, a sharpness in his teeth, things that were not there before. Jeremy fiddles with the ring on his finger, and notes, belatedly, the matching one does not sit around Gavin’s neck, and wonders where it may have gone.

Just before the moon touches the water’s edge, Gavin gasps awake, nails sharp against Jeremy’s skin, and he pushes himself up into a sitting position. Jeremy is just at the door, and offers him a hand.

Together, they walk down to the docks. Before he walks away, Gavin kisses Jeremy, with everything he has, everything he can be, and offers him the sand covered bottle that jingles in his palm.

Everything, one more time, seems to freeze. The storm above them whirls, and pours, and Gavin takes a slow, deep breath.

The wave crashes over him, and swallows him into the sea‒ but something, he notices, seems off.

Jeremy is alone on the beach in the morning when the rest of the crew comes out. A ship stands empty and waiting, and he is clutching a ring on a necklace in his palm. The five of them usher themselves upwards onto the deck.

Gavin smiles from his place by the captain’s quarters, a little sharper, and a little damp.

“What did you wish?” he whispers in Jeremy’s ear, after the two of them have reunited on the rocking wood, tightly wrapped around one another. Michael whistles in the back, and Ryan laughs to himself‒ Jack and Geoff seem to understand, though, and take the others away, starting their orders and setting to leave, because Gavin is packed and ready, and the way that Burnie stands smiling at the dock’s edge means he already knows.

“I wished,” Jeremy says, “that you could have those six months back.”

Gavin laughs, high and delighted, and presses another kiss to his cheek. Jeremy spins him in his arms, lifts him high. Beneath them, the ship is rocked gently by the ocean, which celebrates it’s son’s return‒

Gavin has, in a way, returned to the sea, as Jeremy has returned to him.

Whole again.

The letters he has missed will be written to him in person, now, words meant for ink now spoken aloud.

And Gavin will have stories to tell of his own.


End file.
